UnchainedTV: Help PETA Stop Massive Monkey Prison in Georgia!

0:00 All hands on deck if you love animals and hate cruelty. PETA is breaking the story. They've learned of plans to build a colossal monkey holding and monkey breeding facility in Bainbridge, Georgia, a small town of less than 15 ,000 people about 40 miles north of Tallahassee, Florida. The planned facility would be absolutely massive. It would be the largest monkey holding facility outside of Asia. This proposed operation would hold 30,000 monkeys. That's two monkeys for every city resident. And of course, it would be horrifically cruel and inflict terrible damage on already endangered monkey populations worldwide.

0:42 And the good news is the people of Bainbridge are standing up and saying, no way. We do not want to risk disease throughout the United States. We do not want ecological disaster for our residents and our surrounding community. There you see some of the local residents who are manning a table. There you see some other local residents who are showing up with signs at hearings saying, stop the monkey farm. They are out there protesting. And some of the residents have filed a lawsuit as well. So we are going to go straight out to Kathy Guillermo, who is the Senior Vice President of Laboratory Investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

1:27 Kathy, what is the latest on this horror? Well, the local residents are putting up a really good fight and they've got some of the officials on their side. Some of the officials have acknowledged that things were done wrong. It wasn't handled properly. And yet the development authority and the city of Bainbridge are still apparently backing this proposal. So the fight is not over. So we mentioned that there was a lawsuit and it's quite a long and involved lawsuit. Will you tell us what happens with that? Where does that stand? Well, this company, Safer Human Medicine, which is barely a company, you know, less than a year old, kind of steamrolled quietly through town, persuaded some officials, it appears, to back this proposal they had for this massive monkey facility.

2:18 They called a meeting of the various departments, the tax assessors, the county board of commissioners, the city, the board of education, and they put this proposal to a vote. Well, it turns out that open meetings laws were violated in that committee meeting. They didn't put out a proper notice. They were all kinds of irregularities with it. So the lawsuit alleges that the contracts that were approved, that the proposal that was approved by the officials are illegal and should not be honoured. And that's what the lawsuit's about. So far, the county and the board of tax assessors is agreeing with that, but the city and the board of education are not.

3:01 Wow. So this lawsuit, could this lawsuit stop it in its tracks or at least postpone it? Because if there's pending litigation and allegations of illegality by local government officials and how they handled this, how can they legally go ahead with it, Kathy? Yeah, that's such a great question. I think it could stop it in its tracks. It really could, because if they can't honour the $60 million in tax incentives they offered to this company, then the company is going to be hard pressed to want to go forward with it. What is really complicating this is that there is a bond validation measure that has already been approved by the court in Georgia, and it's very hard to stop those.

3:49 The locals are trying their best, the district attorney is trying, but it's very difficult to stop these. So we really need the city and the board of education to come together and say to this company, well, if you're coming here, you're not getting the $60 million in tax incentive, we're not building your wastewater treatment plant, we're not doing your lobbying, and we're not going to smooth the way for you to abuse tens of thousands of monkeys in our backyard. All right, we've got callers lining up. Paige in Los Angeles, your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo Fida. Are you saying that taxpayer dollars are paying for this cruelty? How is this still possible that this is acceptable?

4:33 And why are we not using humans now who willingly will bring themselves to this cruelty or testing? Why don't we use humans? That's my question. Yeah, you raised such an important question is why are we even using monkeys? That's right. And I don't think, frankly, monkeys are going to be used for all that much longer. We know Charles River Laboratories, which is where one of the executives of this new company used to work, they told shareholders that they had a 23% or 25% decrease in the number of monkeys used last year for testing, because the pharmaceutical companies didn't want them.

5:15 So we already know there are ways to do this that are better. I think this was a really bad business plan that for some reason that I don't really understand the development authority of Decatur County got behind and steamrolled through. Well, come on, you know, we've been down this road before many years ago. I remember I happened to be in Puerto Rico for a conference when two women who were attorneys from the Puerto Rican Buyer Association Animal Law Subcommittee, I remember that, came up to me and said, oh my gosh, they've built this giant massive monkey breeding facility in a little town in Puerto Rico called, I think it was Guyama, or something like that, and we can't stop it.

5:58 I said, never say you can't stop it until you've tried. And PETA was amazing on that, fought it all the way up to the Puerto Rican Supreme Court, and it was not allowed to open. That was a huge battle. You remember that well, Kathy. Is this a similar situation? You know, I think it is. I think this is people profiteering on the backs of these animals, hoping that the so -called monkey shortage in the United States is going to line their pockets, because monkeys are now selling for $15,000 a piece. I don't know where they're going to get these monkeys, but that's their plan. And I do think it's the same situation. I do think these things can be stopped.

6:40 And you know, when you have more than 6,000 people in Decatur County who come together to stop this, who are working on it actively every day, I don't think that can be ignored. I'm sorry to say that the two senators from the state of Georgia, Senators Ossock and Warnock, have not made a statement about it. I think that's a shame. But I also think that the citizens of any county and any state are far more powerful together than any company or any single legislator. Well, I mean, this is going to destroy property values. I'm sure that's the fear of these fine folks who were there at the hearing. This is their little quaint little town in Georgia, and now they're going to have this 30,000 monkeys, two monkeys for every person.

7:27 And imagine the excrement, and imagine the water use, and imagine everything, not to mention that monkeys do escape from facilities like this. We've seen it before. This is an outrage. I want to put up a banner. If you want to help get involved, just go to PETA.org forward slash Bainbridge, PETA .org forward slash Bainbridge. We emailed all the city officials whose emails we could get asking them for comment, did not hear back by deadline. But we invite any of the corporations that are involved as well as any local county or state officials or federal officials, for that matter, on at any time.

8:11 All right, the lines are popping. People are upset about this. Nilo Farr in Dallas, Texas, your question or thought? Hi. Off-topic comments first. I watched the documentary par excellence, The Failed Experiments, and plan on a watch party in the near future. Question regarding the massive monkey prison that may be launched in Georgia. Will caged, raped, and bred individuals be designed to last for regulatory purposes, or else be used for curiosity experiments, fleecing the taxpayer to the tune of $20 billion with a B, US dollar per annum?

8:55 Such a great question. If I might just jump in there, Jane. There are no regulatory requirements for monkeys anymore. Since the passage of the FDA Modernisation Act 2.0 last year, the FDA has the authority to approve medications without the use of animals entirely. Contrary to the lies told by this new company, monkeys were never specifically required for drug testing. There are no real reasons anymore to use these animals, and certainly scientifically, no necessity for it. Thank you for mentioning The Failed Experiments. It's our new docuseries about animal experimentation. We're really proud of it. Wow, can't wait to watch that.

9:37 All right, Michelle in Los Angeles, your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo, Senior Vice President of Laboratory Investigations for PETA. Thank you so much for having me on. This is horrific and shocking. I've never heard about this. I know PETA is out there getting the message out, but is there a way? Is the government going to be stepping in? How are we getting the message out, and how can we help? Well, the sad fact is I'll jump in and say the government is often the problem, but you take it away, Kathy. Yeah, that's right. The government is complicit in the use of monkeys. In fact, the Centres for Disease Control, which oversees the quarantine of imported monkeys, is a massive monkey experimenter itself.

10:23 We have an issue with the fact that the government hires companies like this to buy monkeys from. They put them on contract, Charles River Laboratories, for example. It has multiple contracts with the U.S. government, so the government's definitely complicit. This situation in Georgia has made national and international headlines, but if you missed it, definitely go to PETA.org, and you can take action there because it's a national issue. It's not as though there are going to be 30,000 monkeys who go to this facility and that's that. There are going to be thousands of monkeys going in and out of this facility. They're going to be trucked across the United States. They may be passing through the states that you're in on their way to laboratories.

11:04 We know monkeys bring disease in, no fault of their own. These stressed animals, many of them ripped out of their own forest homes, and these diseases are transmissible to humans, so it's a huge national concern as well as a local and state one. All right, our next caller, Tanya in Dallas, Texas. Your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Hi, I was wondering what is the background of the group that's building, going to be operating this facility, trying to operate this facility? Well, I think dastardly would be the word that I would use. The man who is going to be or is the CEO of Safer Human Medicine used to be the vice president and chief operating officer at, wait for it, the InVegal Beagle facility in Virginia, which was exposed in a PETA undercover investigation, eventually investigated by the U .S. Department of Justice, was compelled to close down, agreed to close down under threat of federal lawsuit, and released 4,000 beagles for adoption.

12:04 So he hasn't exactly got a great track record. One of the other three people involved comes from Charles River Laboratories, where he was an executive in charge of importing monkeys. Let me just remind our audience, in case they don't know, Charles River is under investigation for possibly illegally importing monkeys into the U .S., and they're under investigation by not only the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Justice, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged irregularities. So it's a very checkered past these people bring to it. And I would like to play a clip provided by PETA that talks about, essentially, this is one of the people who is running this company that wants to open this monkey breeding facility.

12:53 Here's what he told the people of Bainbridge, and then you can respond to it. So COVID happened, and when you produce beagles, typically they're used at 69 months for the research. So there was almost zero demand for canines, right? We could have, and then totally legal, we could have euthanised all of those dogs, right? And I said, no, we didn't try and make money on it. All right. What's your take on that recorded conversation? That was a bald-faced lie, a bald -faced lie. For years, that facility had treated those dogs as little more than commodities to be sold, which is what they were.

13:39 Hundreds of puppies dying, terrible teeth, beagles crammed together in cages, barking their heads off because they're just so miserable, untreated veterinary conditions. It was a mess, and it was a mess on his watch. So to come on to the video that was recorded or to say to the people of Bainbridge, hey, it wasn't our fault, it was the pandemic, outright lie. Wow. Okay. Lindsay in Tarzana, your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Lindsay? Can you hear me? Yes.

14:21 I just wanted to restate, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Lisa Engel Jones from PETA, and she talked about, we talked about the truck accident and the individual that went up to and opened the curtain thinking they were cats and got a face full of monkeys, a spittle in their face, and then they had to go and be tested, and they're still, they still can have disease as a result of that. It's so unhealthy for the public. Animal testing fails in the human model. Why are we still doing it? We really, everyone, please help by taking action on this.

15:03 Thank you. Yeah. And I want to remind everybody, if so many people are outraged, we're getting a lot of, take that outrage and visit peta.org forward slash Bainbridge, B-A-I-N-B -R-I-D-G-E. This is the city, the town really, where they want to build this massive monkey breeding facility. You can go there, you can write to city officials, you can get involved. It can't just be PETA doing it on their own. PETA needs to mobilise people. That's why we're doing this today, to get every single person who writes an email. And it's so easy. They have all the emails gathered in one spot. You copy it, you put it in, and you write your email.

15:45 That will help. And so, yeah. Why? Why didn't the city, these cities, and this is similar to what happened in Hendry County, Florida, which was yet another attempt to build one of these massive monkey breeding facilities, which PETA again stopped. So they stopped it in Puerto Rico, they stopped it in Hendry County, but it always seems like somebody comes in and tells the city, you're going to make a lot of money. And they kind of believe that this is somehow going to bring in bucks, when in fact, I think the opposite could be true.

16:28 Oh, I think very much so, especially when the bottom falls out of the monkey experimentation market. And it seems to us from the records that we have reviewed, that this was a project that the company brought to the development authority, the development authority in collaboration with the city, put this proposal together. And there was very little notice before the meeting. They didn't realise they were going to need to be voting on it that day. It doesn't excuse anything. These are public officials who need to know what they're about to bring to their city. But it does appear that they swallowed wholeheartedly the lies of Safer Human Medicine, that these were going to be desirable jobs, as though making $16 an hour, taking care of abused monkeys is a desirable job, that there would be no threat to the community.

17:16 This facility is about a quarter of a mile from the Flint River, and at full capacity will be producing 444,000 gallons of wastewater by their own statistics. And it's less than 300 feet from some people's houses, some people's yards. It was very ill-conceived. So I'm sure the people in that area, and we've seen the photos that I got off of the PETA website of people, there they have tables against this, they're attending meetings against this, they're holding up signs, they're filing lawsuits or a lawsuit. I mean, doesn't that hold sway with the town? It does with some of the officials, and I have to hand it to the citizens of Bainbridge.

18:00 What a great group of people who have worked so hard to defeat this, and have been at every meeting and have been to see their officials and have been out in the streets and educating the public, and they have a website and they have a Facebook page, which you can find if you go to PETA.org. And they've done just a tremendous job. And it is, I have to say, disappointing that the city has not yet backed off this plan officially. They released a statement saying, we've heard you loud and clear, we don't support it, we will not be taking any further action. However, what we need is for the city to take action and to admit that they violated the Open Meetings Act to some degree at least, and to reject the proposal that they approved.

18:46 If you can prove, and it seems pretty obvious from what I've looked at, that yes, they did violate the Open Meetings Act. There was something like a 50 plus million dollar benefit to this corporation, what you'd characterise as a sweetheart deal to encourage them to come there? I mean, shouldn't it be the other way? I don't understand. You know, it's a mystery to me why they thought this was going to be desirable business to have in their backyard. Now, I understand communities wanting to bring businesses in, I understand them offering incentives, but the sweetheart deal that this company got is almost beyond belief.

19:27 Yes, 58 million dollars in tax incentives, they wouldn't be paying full taxes for at least a decade after they moved in, if they're still in business. This is money the city and the county may never recoup if this goes through. There were all kinds of other promises made to them, including, you know, we will smooth the way for the permitting process for you, we will use our lobbyists to help you gain all the incentives that you needed. It's just almost unbelievable. Wow, okay. We've got Emick in Los Angeles, your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo, people for the ethical treatment of animals.

20:08 Hello, I really love your work, it's always inspiring, thank you. So the ignorance of officials is criminal as usual when it comes to animals, and we know animal tests don't benefit humans, then it's just abused on the hands of humans, and it causes suffering to animals and humans, because humans are waiting for a cure through these experiments that is never going to come. So I'm curious, like, to me, anyone who brings animal testing and abuse must be fired immediately, it's 2024.

20:51 How can we demand that animal abusers are filtered out of the hiring process, or the election process, even from the government position, so we can prevent wasting lives of poor animals and resources before these crimes reach government level? Excellent question, Kathy. Well, you know, we've got a plan for the phase out of animal experimentation called the research modernisation deal, and we do ask our supporters to get in touch with their members of Congress about it and ask them to support it. It lays out the case for the fact that animal experiments have failed to produce cures and treatments for humans who desperately need it.

21:32 What we have to overcome is this massive industry of people like Safer Human Medicine, and Charles River, and these companies that import and breed and sell animals, the cage makers, the food makers, and the experimenters themselves who learned one way of doing science, and even though it's not working, can't bring themselves to change that way. I will say, finally, after many years of submitting formal comments of protesting the National Institutes of Health, the biggest funder of animal experimentation, we're starting to see a little bit of movement and support for non-animal methods. There's a long way to go. The best thing you can do is get in touch with their legislators and remind them that they need to take action.

22:16 We have many members of Congress on our side now, so I think this is doable. And I have to say, just when I was getting ready to do this broadcast, PETA, who never sleeps, came up with a victory, and I decided, let's talk about it here. Dear Jane, in a PETA victory, this was this morning, baby rats will no longer be fed an iron deficient diet to induce anaemia in cruel experiments in which they are fed a test food and their blood is repeatedly taken, conducted by companies wanting to make iron -related health claims for marketing their food or beverage products in Taiwan. Tell us about this victory. Well, yes, this is one of a string of victories in Taiwan.

22:58 We're working systematically to end the testing involving animals for food ingredients and food products. It's a marketing issue. That's all it is. They want to do these horrible tests on animals where they force feed them things, run them on treadmills so that they can make claims about how healthy food ingredients are. The science is not there to back it. And so we have been working with the Taiwanese government and the officials there to remove their requirements for animal testing for a whole host of claims. And this is the most recent. This will now be a direction of the government agency in Taiwan that these tests are no longer required, no longer necessary in order to make health claims about iron-related products.

23:45 Wow. Okay. We've got yet another caller, Tiffany in Los Angeles, your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo of PETA. Yes. Thank you so much for spreading the word about this and what we can do to sign the petition and go to the PETA site. Also, do you think that they'll be planning any mass demonstration or a type of rally? I'm sure folks from all over would like to attend. Yeah. I see the photos of the folks there going to meetings, et cetera. If I go back, if I hearken back to our time where we successfully, and I say we, I was a little tiny little blip, PETA did this, stopped the Hendry, well, the Puerto Rico and the Hendry County, particularly the Hendry County plan, Hendry County, Florida, very similar situation.

24:42 Company comes in, all of a sudden there's like backroom dealing allegedly. And suddenly they've got this plan for this massive monkey breeding facility. PETA did, correct me if I'm wrong, an undercover investigation at the facility that was going to be the basis or the home site for the new facility. And I can tell you what stopped it was PETA and a lot of extremely confrontational protests by local residents. And I'll never forget this moment where there we are outside the Hendry County courthouse.

25:24 And some of the proponents of this monkey breeding facility said, these are animal rights extremists. And all of a sudden, about 20 old ladies in tennis shoes, one of whom was wearing a little hat with a plastic orange on her head, in their eighties were like, you're going to call us animal rights activists. We're, we're citizens. We don't want to ruin our beautiful state and our beautiful community. Clearly these were local residencies, weren't some animal activists who came in from out of state. It was, as was alleged, I was out of state, but I was there as a reporter, but they had to get really in your face with these Hendry County commissioners till they really felt like, oh, my career's over if I don't, it can't just be polite.

26:12 Unfortunately, I wish it could. Well, I'll tell you the residents of Bainbridge have been very much in the faces of their officials. They've been to the city, the city meetings and the County commissioners, dozens of them have spoken publicly and, and quite loudly. And because Bainbridge is a small town, they see these people on the streets and they're in their faces on the streets. There has been at least one protest. And I think there will be more at the moment. The, the method that, that what we have needed is for people to speak out to their legislative representatives, to the officials in those meetings. And, and that I think will lead to the kind of protests that you're talking about on a national level at the moment there, there is the most effective thing that people can do is take, take action on our website, send those emails.

27:01 It is a national issue. Yes. Okay. And there it's, I want to clarify, because if you go to pita.org forward slash Bainbridge, you can write to the local city officials, but you can also write to, let's say your senators, your members of Congress. Can you break it down for us? Yeah. You know, it's, it's important, I think, first of all, to let the city know they are, and I, I believe this is correct. Some of them are very ashamed that they have made international news that they're seeing the city of Bainbridge on a Facebook page in France because of the upcoming abuse of monkeys. And they're, and they're very sensitive to this publicity.

27:42 They, they are sensitive to criticism from outside. So that's why I think it's important for everybody to get in touch with the city officials and, and the other officials there. It's also important to go to the congressional representatives in this state. There are thousands and thousands of constituents who oppose this. We believe that the, that the congressman there, Sanford Bishop, Representative Bishop, should be making a statement about this. What these legislators can do may be somewhat limited based on the court cases and the procedure in the county, but they can certainly say we stand with the residents of Decatur County and the citizens of Bainbridge. The same for the two senators, Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock.

28:24 We have met with locals, with all of the staff members and with some of these legislators via Zoom. The locals have expressed their concern. These legislators know the citizens oppose it. And I think it's shameful that they have not yet made a statement standing with their own constituents in opposition to safer human medicine. I've often said it's sad, but when you're starting, when you're trying to stop any of this stuff, it's really, you got to get to a math, it's like game theory. When it's more painful for them to support it in terms of their career, in terms of their reputation, in terms of money, in terms of just chaos in their lives, that's when it doesn't matter whether it's somebody selling fur, some company selling fur or situations like this, that's when they stop.

29:16 The pressure has to be on. And this is why I say everybody, I've already done it. As a journalist, I emailed every city official on the PETA.org forward slash Bainbridge site saying we were doing this story, listing some of the allegations, asking for a response. And I can also write as a citizen. I will also write as a citizen, but we need everybody to do that. If you're upset, when you look at the photos of these animals and it breaks my heart, look at their fear, look at their terror. These are our ancestors, our relatives, and we are torturing them for no reason.

30:00 But that people are stuck in their ways and they are wanting more money for their McMansions, fake science. And that's what I say, fake science, scam artists. Because 90% or more of the experiments that work in animals don't work in humans. And let's go to one more caller and then we're going to come back. Oh, we got two more callers. Okay. Annie and Sherman Oaks, your question or thought. Yes. Thank you so much. Hi, Kathy. Hi, Jane. Thank you so much for having this. This is something that really bleeds my heart. Being in the psychology department, I remember universities having a big role in this too.

30:45 And they actually want the funding to come big, billions of dollars of our taxes go to experiments. How can we block all governmental, not only in Georgia, they do all these bleeding of animals, torturing them for money and it never works. How can we stop governmental from the root? What can we do? And I'm more than ready to volunteer to do with PETA, whatever is needed. So thank you so much for all that you're doing. Well, let me ask you, Annie, are you going to go to PETA.org forward slash Bainbridge and write those emails?

31:25 Absolutely. Absolutely. And I will share them and I will do it again and again. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. All right. Kathy, what do you say? Well, you know, there are several things that can be done. It needs to be stopped on the local level and it needs to be stopped on the national level, locally or in your state. If there are universities in your state that are experimenting on animals, and it's likely that there are, be in touch with those universities and say, you don't, you will not support them. You want them to stop it. If you're a member of an alumni or association, or you are an alumni of a university alumni, I think of a university that experiments on animals, let them know you will never be contributing to that university because of the experimentation on animals.

32:13 It's important. And I want to jump in and say that my alma mater NYU calls me every so often. And I say, until you stop all animal experimentation, I am not giving a penny to NYU, not a single penny. Please pass that along to upstairs. I say it every time. Fantastic. That's exactly what needs to be done. Then on the national level, we have the National Institutes of Health, which doles out about $19 billion to various facilities, mainly universities in the US and overseas. And they have a long way to go. And the only thing that is going to change it is public outcries.

32:55 Just as you said, Jane, it's got to be pressure and it's got to be constant. It's got to be more painful for them to do this than to stop it. And that's both pressure on NIH. And you can do that through many of the action alerts on our website and also members of Congress. There are two things, if I may say for members of Congress, one is to urge them to support the research modernisation deal or the RMD as we call it. And the second is a very important bill that we're working on. It's called the Cargo Act. It's CEAS Animal Research. Okay, I forget what it stands for offhand. But it's at foreign facilities. And we've given about $2 billion to laboratories in other countries to experiment on animals.

33:42 And as PETA uncovered in the country of Colombia, there's nobody paying attention to what's going on. The Cargo Act will stop funding animal experiments overseas by NIH, not non-animal research, that may continue. But these foreign labs that are doing things like addicting dogs to opioids and blinding and cutting out the eyes of mice and monkeys and causing strokes in monkeys, that could be stopped. So urge your representatives to support that bill. And it seems so crazy to me, we went through a pandemic, whether you believe it started in the Wuhan wet market or the Wuhan lab, the commonality is animals were being tortured.

34:26 And you would think you would learn, especially with the controversy over the Wuhan lab, that the United States shouldn't be handing out money to foreign laboratories with zero oversight. They shouldn't be handing out money to do animal experiments, period. And how is it that even despite the pandemic, they haven't gotten this lesson? It's crazy and makes no sense. And I think, you know, with regard to the Georgia facility, the disease issue is very serious. I mean, we know from the CDC's own records that the number of animals coming into this country with diseases transmissible to humans like malaria and tuberculosis has skyrocketed in the last several years.

35:08 And there are diseases in our country now that haven't been here before or haven't been identified here before, including a new strain of tuberculosis. There's actually a disease, a pathogen that causes a disease called Melioidosis, hard to say, but just remember this, it's considered a tier one select agent that could be used for bioterrorism. It's now in our soils, in our soil in this country, and it has come in with monkeys. So I think we really need to pay attention to this. And for some reason, the very agencies, the CDC and the NIH that are supposed to protect us from these pandemics are enabling the transport of monkeys with diseases and with pathogens to come into this country.

35:51 It really makes no sense. And they escape. One of the things that people, and I think this could be a real strong talking point for the people of Bainbridge, there's a history of these monkeys escaping. They're smart and they find ways out and then they go into the community and it's happened time and time again. Can you address that Kathy? Yes, it's inevitable. It's not a matter of if it will happen, but when it will happen. Monkeys and chimpanzees and other animals or other primates have escaped from so-called, you know, upscale for lack of a better word facilities, facilities that are considered prestigious.

36:33 They've escaped in Texas, in Louisiana, in Florida, in North Carolina, and in many other places. And yes, they don't want to be in these cages. If they can figure out a way to get out, they're going to get out and they're going to get out with their diseases. The accident, the road accident in Pennsylvania that one of the callers referred to earlier was a shipload of monkeys coming in on a plane to New York and being trucked across country to some unknown facility. And there was a car accident and a truck accident in Pennsylvania. The crates that you see the pictures of here spilled out onto the road. And the people who stopped to help didn't know what animals were in them.

37:14 The woman who got some monkey saliva in her eye was told that there were cats in these crates. So she went up to try to help and ended up in an emergency room and undergoing a course of therapy to make sure she didn't contract herpes B, a nearly universal fatal illness that monkeys carry without a problem. But when it gets into a human system, you die. 23 lab workers have died of herpes B. So these are very serious issues. All right, we've got Susan in Dallas, Texas, your question or thought for Kathy Guillermo. Hi. First, I really wanted to thank you, Eugene, for doing this show and also Peter for all your incredible work.

37:57 My question is, have we thought about or is there any way to question the company itself? Because it seems to me safer human medicine is a lie, as we all know. So can we approach that? You know, it's a good question. And we certainly would like to. This company is shrouded in some mystery. It was just incorporated about a year ago. There are only three names associated with it, men who came from other companies with troubled pasts. We only know of one funder. It's an investment firm that funds the development of pharmaceuticals, from what we can tell.

38:41 They are not interested in going and not carrying this through, however. I mean, these are people who aren't going to live in the state of Georgia. They would like to plop this facility down and then go back to their, you know, their homes and communities that are much safer. And I don't think there's any talking to them about it. They want to steamroller this through despite the objections of the citizens. And they've said as much, you know, we really don't care that you don't want this in your community. We want to make this happen. Wow. I just want to go back and just, first of all, applaud PETA for being relentless and never, never stopping because of the situation in Puerto Rico that I remember happening where they tried to build a similar facility.

39:28 Oh my gosh. I think that was way back in something like 2009. That sounds about right. Yeah. And so you stopped it there. And again, you had to take it all the way up to the Puerto Rican Supreme Court to stop it. And this is what they did there is they built the entire facility first, and then they asked for permission, probably, you know, handing out God only knows what. But because they didn't get the proper permits, it went all the way up to the Puerto Rican Supreme Court. They weren't allowed to open that facility. Then we had a situation in Hendry County where there was a plan to bring in a new facility.

40:12 There was some guy who came from out of town who was kind of like promoting it. And it was such a saga. I remember that there was a moment where all the different counties were going to show off their business plans and everything they were going to do for new business. And we were there at this event in Fort Myers, sitting at all these tables. And there was this one activist who said, I really don't want to be here. And I said, well, you don't have to be here if you don't want to. We bought tickets. We're here. Let's just see what happens.

40:53 And we were just sitting there as Hendry County did their entire presentation, never mentioning the proposed monkey facility. And this same woman who was so reluctant to be there suddenly jumped up. This happened, ran to the front of the stage, jumped on the stage and said, you are lying. You are omitting the huge monkey breeding facility you want to put here. All hell broke loose. And that was the end of it. And then when we drove up to investigate further, a few days later or a week later, sometime later, the guy who had come from out of town to push this whole thing had left. And literally, it was like he cleared out and fled.

41:35 The door to his home was open. And we just walked in and we looked. It was like he skipped town. That has never lost me, never left me, that whole saga, where one protester who at first didn't want to be there, but then when she heard the dissembling and saw that they were going to hide this big plan, just lost it and jumped up there. She wasn't violent, but she disrupted the whole thing and said, you're leaving out your big plan. And it made the news. It was chaos. And that's what did it in. I personally believe, obviously, along with the great work of PETA, it just shows you one potent activist really putting her foot down and being disruptive in a peaceful, nonviolent way, that can also help.

42:28 It's everything, Jane. It's everything. And as far as sticking to a campaign, well, that comes directly from my boss, Ingrid Newkirk, who always says animals don't need five -minute friends. We've got to start something and we've got to see it through. And I have to also let your audience know that Charles River is trying to put a similar facility in Texas. And we've worked with the locals there. We're perhaps in a slightly better place there now than we are in Georgia, because Charles River has said, look, we didn't know there would be such opposition. We're putting this plan on hold for the moment. The fight's not over, but the point is this can happen anywhere. This can happen in your community. If you think it's just Georgia or you think it's just Brazoria County, Texas, it's not.

43:12 It can be anywhere where there's a piece of land where somebody thinks they can make money by buying and selling monkeys like they're slaves. Wow. Well, we have a lot of people who called in from Texas today. So what can they do? Is Brazoria County where they were trying to plan this? That's right. It's down by the Gulf Coast. They want to put in a facility that's on a wetlands area, which of course is extremely dangerous for a whole lot of reasons. And in both Texas and Georgia, the storm issues are significant. There are hurricane areas, there are flood areas. And if you know, I spoke with an organisation that does a lot of work with small animal shelters in Georgia.

43:53 And she said, when there's a storm and there's a flood, it is a disaster when you have 50 dogs in a facility. Imagine you have a flood and there's 30 ,000 monkeys in them. But as far as to answer your question, what people can do is just go to PETA.org and you'll see information about the Texas facility or simply Google PETA Brazoria County. That's B-R-A-Z-O-R-I -A. And unlike in Georgia, we've had the good ear of many legislators who are listening to their constituents and the city and the county officials in that community have listened to their constituents. And that's what we need to happen in Georgia as well.

44:33 Wow. Well, I hope that some residents of Bainbridge are watching or we can send them this video because I could tell them, step it up, step it up. I mean, daily protests. Daily protests and three cheers for those folks who are working so hard to stop this. It is everything. I can't emphasise enough, Jane, as you've said that sometimes it's one activist, sometimes it's 10 ,000, but the more the better and the more constant, the better. And being oh so very polite is not going to work. It's not going to work.

45:14 We have to raise our voices for the animals because the bad guys don't really hear until we speak forcefully. Polite letters, I wish I was wrong. I wish polite letters would work, but throughout all of these campaigns, it always starts with a polite letter, doesn't it? In virtually every case. And you're right, silence is death for animals. They don't have the time to wait for us to be quiet and to be polite. We need to be loud and we need to know we're right and we need to keep it up. So let's talk, you said that there were promising aspects to what's happening with animal experimentation.

45:57 The research modernisation deal, where does that stand? Because what is it in a nutshell and where does it stand? The research modernisation deal was developed by scientists at PETA in response to requests from the Dutch government who was looking for a plan to phase out the use of animals. And so on very short notice, we put together all the information that we already had, but had never quite been put together in a strategy before. And what it does is lay out the evidence that shows the failure of animal experiments. For example, the 95 to a hundred percent failure of all treatments for many serious disease areas that have not worked in humans, even though they appear to be promising in animals.

46:43 And then it's a strategy, a five-point strategy that says, here's what officials need to do. First of all, when we know an area of animal experimentation is not working, say sepsis experiments on animals, sepsis of course being what happens to so many people in hospitals when their body reacts to infection and can shut down, kills more than a hundred thousand people a year. 150 drugs developed in mice, none of them worked in humans. So when we know an area of research on animals is not working, stop it immediately. We know it doesn't work, quit putting good money after bad. The second is to find out scientifically every other area that we're not sure about.

47:26 Conduct those systematic reviews, put together the evidence, which we know is there, that it's not working, and then stop those areas. And then there are a number of other steps involving implementation of non-animal methods. We have to change the committees that review the proposals for funding at NIH, because these committees are largely composed of animal experimenters, and we need people with expertise in non-animal methods. We need the government to get behind education on non-animal methods. The methods are there. This isn't a matter of we have to develop a whole lot of new things. It's there. But we need to encourage young researchers to follow this information, to learn about non-animal methods, and we need to take the pressure off graduate students in the sciences to do animal experiments, which is something we exposed in a short documentary called Test Subjects, about three of our scientists who were compelled to do animal experiments in order to get their doctoral degrees.

48:24 And it was so devastating for them. It changed the whole course of their careers. Oh, I can't even imagine. I mean, this is also across the board. I've talked to people who are in vet school who don't want to do animal experimentation or cruel whatever, and they're like, well, I need to become, I've invested so much to become a veterinarian. But there are people who have made history by refusing to do vivisection, and filing a lawsuit, and finding out that a lot of their fellow students feel the same way, but were unwilling to reveal it for fear of repercussion. And then when one person, again, when one person stands up and does it, a lot of other people say, I feel the same way.

49:08 I didn't want to say anything, but I don't want to do this either. So that's why it's so important for one person to take a committed stand and stick their neck out. Is that not true? Oh, it's completely true. I mean, we do a lot of lawsuits, because this is why, because we've got to fight these things. And sometimes it's one person and one lawsuit that does it. And just to answer the second part of your question, Jane, where it stands now is that members of Congress know what the research modernisation deal is. We now need those members of Congress to compel NIH to take the steps we outlined. We're gaining traction in Europe. We know in England and certainly in the European parliament, we have support.

49:49 And the members of the European parliament have even voted to compel the commission to come up with a plan to phase out experimentation. And they did this after they read the research modernisation deal. So there is progress, but it can be slow unless we really keep at it. So again, pardon me if I'm a little confused about this, because I thought maybe this passed, but has it been signed into law? In Europe, do you mean? No, the research modernisation deal. Not yet. At the moment, we are still at the point where we need members of Congress to not only be familiar with what it is, but to take action with the National Institutes of Health.

50:32 I think the Cargo Act that I mentioned earlier is really their first step in that direction and the FDA Modernisation Act as well, frankly. But the Cargo Act, which says, okay, this is a bridge too far when we're sending this money overseas. It needs to end everywhere. Let's start with where we don't have any oversight of it. It has not passed yet. It needs to. What we've seen is that the National Institutes of Health under the new director, Director Burton Yole, have made a commitment to supporting non -animal methods and implementing non-animal methods. And they did this under pressure from people within NIH and from our scientists who have consistently and repeatedly pointed the way forward for them.

51:15 And we were really happy to see in the new announcement that they made about two weeks ago about this, that many of the steps that we had recommended were included. So it's positive, but it's all in the doing. You can say a lot of things, but if it's not done, it doesn't make any difference. And that's why we still need people to be in touch with members of Congress about it. And we only have a couple of minutes left. I just want to cover some of the hideous, idiotic experiments. I was actually calling and I didn't get a pickup on an experiment. Names aside, because journalistically, I would have to reach out to them, but I did try to reach out. But after business hours, they're subjecting monkeys to severe noises every 15 minutes to test what?

52:03 What nonsense? You know, this is a, just a crazy experiment. And what we don't go into in the emails that we send out, because it's just too complicated, is that this experiment originated at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where we're trying to stop the use of marmosets in ridiculous menopause experiments. The same experimenter who is doing those came up with this plan to wake up tiny, gentle marmoset monkeys every 15 minutes, all night long. And somehow this is supposed to tell us something about humans with Alzheimer's or dementia who have trouble sleeping. I mean, it's insane on the face of it.

52:44 And our own university wouldn't even let her do it. She's got funding from NIH. She went to University of Wisconsin and they agreed to do it. And it hasn't started yet to our knowledge. That's why we're working so hard right now. We've had the call-ins and the emails, and if I have to, I'm going to stand outside this experimenter's door banging a pan every 15 minutes so she has a sense of what it is. But it's a ridiculous thing. There are brain scans with human beings who have trouble sleeping right now that are being done. It's ridiculous that somebody is suggesting this has anything to do with helping human beings. Well, it's all follow the money. It's easy to get research grants when you say, okay, I'm going to take this many monkeys and do this terrible thing to them.

53:30 But that's not moving science ahead. That is just barbaric. It belongs in a mediaeval torture museum. We are in the 21st century, and it makes my blood boil that a single tax dollar that I contribute would go to any of this. And I just am so grateful to PETA for never, never giving up. Relentless, strategic, all hands on deck, PETA makes it happen. And that's why I, anytime, no matter what I'm doing, when I get an email from PETA, I stop everything and I take action on that email. Why?

54:10 Because I know it's going to be fast. It's going to be an action point that is strategic and smart, and it's going to have an impact. I urge everybody sign up for the PETA alerts. Go to this website to help these monkeys, 30,000 monkeys that could be put into prison in this little community. And it's very, very easy. Go to PETA.org forward slash Bainbridge, PETA .org forward slash Bainbridge, follow the prompts, let them know that this is shameful and that nobody wants it. And I really, really want to say once again, PETA, wow, I have been following you for my entire career and always, always, always on the mark making positive change.

55:06 Thank you, Kathy Guillermo. Thank you, Jane. And thank you for your activism. I mean, you've made a world of difference to animals and we're so grateful and such big fans of yours.